s where none even of
the youths may go. Being so wide, and short, and flat, she has none to
pay her compliments; and, were there any, she would scorn them, as not
being Cornishmen. Sometimes she wanders far, by moonlight, on the moors
and up the rivers, to give her father (as she says) another chance of
finding her, and she comes back not a wit defeated, or discouraged, or
depressed, but confident that he is only waiting for the proper time.

'Herein she sets me good example of a patience and contentment hard for
me to imitate. Oftentimes I am vexed by things I cannot meddle with, yet
which cannot be kept from me, that I am at the point of flying from this
dreadful valley, and risking all that can betide me in the unknown outer
world. If it were not for my grandfather, I would have done so long ago;
but I cannot bear that he should die with no gentle hand to comfort him;
and I fear to think of the conflict that must ensue for the government,
if there be a disputed succession.

'Ah me! We are to be pitied greatly, rather than condemned, by people
whose things we have taken from them; for I have read, and seem almost
to understand about it, that there are places on the earth where gentle
peace, and love of home, and knowledge of one's neighbours prevail, and
are, with reason, looked for as the usual state of things. There honest
folk may go to work in the glory of the sunrise, with hope of coming
home again quite safe in the quiet evening, and finding all their
children; and even in the darkness they have no fear of lying down, and
dropping off to slumber, and hearken to the wind of night, not as to an
enemy trying to find entrance, but a friend who comes to tell the value
of their comfort.

'Of all this golden ease I hear, but never saw the like of it; and,
haply, I shall never do so, being born to turbulence. Once, indeed, I
had the offer of escape, and kinsman's aid, and high place in the gay,
bright world; and yet I was not tempted much, or, at least, dared not to
trust it. And it ended very sadly, so dreadfully that I even shrink from
telling you about it; for that one terror changed my life, in a moment,
at a blow, from childhood and from thoughts of play and commune with the
flowers and trees, to a sense of death and darkness, and a heavy weight
of earth. Be content now, Master Ridd ask me nothing more about it, so
your sleep be sounder.'

But I, John Ridd, being young and new, and very fond of hearing things
t